


Trade

by fenellaevangela



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Childbirth, Dark, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Mpreg, ToT: Monster Mash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 12:50:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8372890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenellaevangela/pseuds/fenellaevangela
Summary: Those who knew of it assumed Henry's immortality was his darkest secret, but it was only the beginning.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArgylePirateWD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgylePirateWD/gifts).



> Hello ArgylePirateWD! I loved your letter and was excited to be assigned to you! This is outside my normal oeuvre, but I hope there's something here you like :-D

Henry already feared what would happen if the wrong person discovered his immortality – he could only imagine what fate laid in wait for him if it was revealed that his unnaturalness went even further.

The first time it had happened he realized later that he had been very, very lucky to be alone. In the moment he had been terrified, the knowledge that he would almost certainly survive whatever was happening to him a dull comfort in the face of the unfamiliar symptoms – the sudden aching swell of his stomach and the intense, vicelike cramps that gripped it. As he lay in his bedroll racked with pain and curled up around his swollen belly he had wished very much that someone else was there to soothe him. He had borne the pain with no end in sight and no rational idea of what could be happening to him until, hours later and with heaving effort, he had forced the interloper from his body.

He didn’t know what it was. It couldn’t be a human child, he had had no doubt of that; when he had hesitantly wrapped it in his discarded overcoat it had blinked its eyes open and stared at him, its penetrating gaze focussing on him with an awareness that had chilled Henry’s overworked body to the bone. When he had eventually succumbed to his exhaustion and fallen asleep he later awoke to find the infant gone. He had prayed it was all just a fever dream.

It was not.

The second time it had happened, the decades of only returning to that day in his nightmares were wiped away with a single deep-rooted twinge in Henry’s gut. He had needed to fight to be alone that time, escaping from his place of work and fleeing into the street in a desperate hunt for somewhere to endure his coming ordeal away from prying eyes and ears. The only guaranteed privacy he had had at the time was at the apartment where he lived, but even as Henry raced in that direction the increasing pressure in his abdomen made it clear that he could never make the distance in time. He had known he wouldn’t be able to reach his apartment before the pains became debilitating; he would need somewhere closer. 

Thus was how Henry had ended up stripped from the waist down, kneeling on his folded trousers in the cellar of a boarded up shop and praying that no one came down the alley and found the broken lock. It was dark and musty in the cellar and the part of Henry’s mind that was always a doctor first had regretted having to give birth there. The rest of Henry had barely noticed. Kneeling afforded him the perfect angle to watch as, with each twisting pain, his stomach began to expand until it hung below him, round and firm. The cramps changed soon afterwards and Henry had known the labour had begun. At first he had tried to stifle the sounds he made, mindful of the busy afternoon street outside, but as the pains intensified the concentration required had been lost to him and he had screamed as the thing descended within him, unrelenting.

It had disappeared as he slept, just as before.

It was after that that Henry had been forced to accept his bizarre affliction as a regular occurrence. At first he had thought to track the births to discern a pattern but that idea had gone out the window when the third incident occurred only nine years later, a far shorter interval than had been between the first two. He was still living in the same city as the last time, living the same life; barely enough time had passed for him to start feigning aging. He had woken up in the dead of night and grabbed his stomach in pain before realizing what was happening. It wasn’t until he felt his stomach swelling under his hand, the flesh growing taut and firm against the press of his fingers, that his sleep-dull mind had recognized the particular agony he now knew was an odd, inhuman child growing rapidly within him. It had been his longest labour yet and he would be relieved, in the future, that it would be twenty long years before he had to experience the grueling pain again. At the time, however, the only thoughts in his head had been of the urgent need to get the thing out of him and how futile his efforts to that end seemed to be.

As with his immortality, there was no rhyme or reason that Henry could determine for the unnatural and accelerated pregnancies that he was forced to suffer through. He could neither explain nor anticipate them, and he always endured the experience alone – something he considered unfortunate yet necessary - until circumstances conspired to change that.

* * *

It was an odd turn of luck that the morgue happened to be empty when it started. Henry often worked in his office late, of course, but only occasionally was he there alone; murders happened even after hours and it was a rare night that the on-call ME wasn’t summoned to deal with some suspicious death or another. But when Henry felt the tell-tale lurch deep within himself the morgue was blessedly and temptingly quiet. He considered his options – his office would afford him no privacy if any ME personnel arrived, but as long as they didn’t he had somewhere familiar and safe to labour without taking the risk of trying to travel with his growing belly. It wasn’t the most precarious spot he had given birth in before and as the first swell pressed out against the waist of his trousers Henry chose to settle in for the long haul.

With each passing hour the pains intensified but the morgue, fortunately, remained empty of everyone except the dead. As his time came closer Henry positioned himself behind his desk, just in case, and let his focus center entirely on the sharp pain low in his abdomen. He would be done again soon.

A voice pulled Henry’s attention outside of himself with a jolt.

“Is this a bad time, Henry?”

Henry’s eyes flew open. “ _Adam_ ,” he gasped, his blood running cold.

The other man moved into Henry’s office. Henry looked around in desperation, but with each approaching step his vulnerability was more firmly cemented. He couldn’t stand up to Adam like this – he could barely stand. He braced himself for whatever Adam had brought himself there to do.

“Oh, calm down,” Adam said, crouching down next to Henry. “I’m not about to interrupt you while they’re taking their due. I’ll save our next chat for later, hmm?”

Heady with pain and fear, Henry peered at the other man in confusion.

“I . . . I don’t understand.”

Adam gave him a bitter smile. “Did you think we didn’t have to _pay_ for our long lives, Henry?”

“I never asked to be immortal,” Henry snapped. “I didn’t agree – aargh!” He gritted his teeth as another band of pain clenched across his swollen belly.

Adam reached across the short distance between them and spread his palm across the tight flesh below Henry’s navel. His hand felt cool and dry against Henry’s agitated stomach and the sensation caused the creature inside to kick abruptly. Henry groaned and Adam pressed down harder, rubbing gently.

“The things that did this to us make their own agreements,” Adam explained, his hand still moving. “And then they take their toll from our bodies at their whim, a macabre trade of pain for pain.”

“But _why_?” asked Henry.

Adam shrugged. “Why do the fair folk do anything?”

There was so much still to ask, but instead Henry simply huffed as the thing inside him moved lower. There was no more time for questions. With the next pain he screwed his eyes shut against the image of his worst enemy kneeling over him and bore down as hard as he could. He lost track of time and place as his body regained his full attention, his muscles clamping down around his stomach like a vice. Each excruciating effort brought the pressure lower and lower, until he knew he was almost done. It was so close. Henry keened as, finally, the creature began to crown. Adam’s hands were still on him and as much as he was loathe to admit it, he drew comfort from their solid presence. As he bore down Adam applied complementary pressure until, with a gasp, Henry finally felt the thing’s head emerge. 

He shuddered at the sensation of the creature half birthed, most of it still lodged within his body. This was always the worst part, for him. When his stomach cramped with the next contraction he redoubled his efforts, but it wasn’t enough – the shoulders still had not passed.

“Remember to breathe, Henry,” Adam said.

Henry took a gasping breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and then groaned as Adam took hold of the creature and tugged, pulling it completely free. 

“There,” he said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

With the last of his energy Henry threw a rude gesture in Adam’s direction.

“If you have any decency left in you, you’ll leave me be,” he said.

Adam stood. “As you wish. But I’ll be seeing you soon, Henry.”

As Adam left and Henry felt himself surrendering to his body’s exhaustion, one thought rang through his head: he knew what was causing his immortality now. He knew what was causing it and at last, as he had wanted for so long, he knew where to start looking to find out how to stop it. Adam had finally given him what he wanted – and Henry was going to find a way to use it.


End file.
